


Fatherhood

by wearwind



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Assassin's Creed: Forsaken References, Canon, Gen, Haytham's diary, He should have never had children, Kenway Family, Wallowing in templarness, Ziio never hated him but Connor does, because Forsaken sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6476080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearwind/pseuds/wearwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the diary of Master Haytham Kenway on killing, love and fatherhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fatherhood

**Fatherhood**

_from the diary of Master Haytham Kenway_

A man who is not afraid of having a child should not have one. I have wielded power over human life for nearly four decades now; I was merely a boy when I was taught that we can and do inflict death when we see it necessary. This lesson I have never forgotten. The ability to take life away from these we deem unworthy of it was the foundation of both our Orders – and, ironically enough, it was our enemies who took the name of killers. They who declare freedom as the ultimate value, they who fight us because of our pursuit of control – they call themselves the Assassins, a beautiful Eastern-originating word which had come to mean nothing more, nothing less than murderers. How can one have more absolute, more tyrannical power over another human being, if not by deciding upon his death? One does not even have to kill, it is enough to have the means to do so. This is the most ancient, most perfect method of control that mankind has ever developed – yet only one of our Orders openly admits its real use. The Assassins – oh, the irony! – the _Assassins_ deny the value of control, but exercise it anyway. This is the first great hypocrisy that has been laid upon the very foundations of this organization – the original delusion that has created all the subsequent ones.

The power of inflicting death is not to be taken lightly, but it is natural and commonly recognized as such. Justice, order and greater good shall be the guides of the hand that strikes the killing blow; one must be wise and swift in his decision, not wasting precious time on pondering upon philosophical matters, but practically thinking and far-sighted enough to predict the consequences of both killing his prey or letting them alive. In this matter, a killer against his target is most similar to a doctor against a disease – will his bold actions make the patient recover, or will they do only harm? Or worse yet, if weak and cautious, will they light a false spark of peace, allowing the hidden disease to regain its strength and strike one more time? The patient we Templars are striving to keep healthy is _order_ , as simple as that. It is ridden by diseases of rebellion, uncertainty, wars, and dissension. We, the unseen, long-suffering doctors of the world, are sworn to fight against these diseases – and thus, we must kill to make our patient recover. We must kill. We have, and we will.

I have taken many lives during my tenure as a Templar – too many to remember not even the face of every one, but only the numbers. After years of experience, it becomes automatic, even unthinking, a purely physical reaction of trained muscles. It unsettles me when I allow my mind to wonder, just like right now; my indifference towards killing is not something I am proud of, nor something I would approve of in anyone else. But I suppose my lifetime of experience and knowledge of these matters justifies my approach; the decisions of consequences are made quicker, without hesitation, with certainty that only practice provides. And after all, there is no higher power than myself to judge my actions – I _am_ the Grand Master of the Templar Order and there is no man who may question my decisions or claim himself equal in authority.

I have never been afraid of killing. The power of taking life has been always close to my mind, familiar and understandable from early childhood. The responsibility of killing weighs on my shoulders, yet does not make me afraid – but having a child does.

There are thousands and millions of ways how to kill a man – from the air, from the side, from a hiding spot, with a ranged weapon, with poison, with rope… Billions of ways and means to extinguish the weak flame of life. And only one to light it. Only one, nearly vulgar in its simplicity, yet so unbelievably beautiful and alluring at the same time – even to those who renounced all personal bliss in pursuit of greater goals.

It has, at the same time, everything and nothing in common with the physical act of simple coitus, aimed only at pleasure, entertainment and stress relief, being an object of trade, exchange and evaluation. Prostitutes are natural inhabitants of every larger human settlement – and it is only natural that they appear. Still… Although the process may have been monetised, the essential value of the act itself remains somehow untouched. An eternal taboo, it seems – connected with grand notions such as love and marriage, but also jealousy, feeling of ownership towards the partner, increased attachment and devotion, embarrassment, shame, shyness, fear. Such a ubiquitous, ever-present action that should be now long since dismissed as normal and boring – and yet so much ado about it on every level of human existence. Not only sex itself, but love. Why? What for? Why do humans stress this as the most important thing in life, obsess about it throughout generations, centuries? Why do we need it?

These questions have troubled me for a long time and still I cannot find a satisfying answer – or any answer at all. They formed in my head many years ago, when a woman whose name I could not even pronounce chose me as her man, gave me her love, and then requested I went away. This is a forgotten story now; with my passing there will be no one to ever tell it, and I prefer that way. Yet I remember the ride to Boston after what I knew would be the last time I saw her, as was her wish. It was cold, cold and snowing; the sky above the trees was white and blank, and so was my heart and mind. The only two things that would abort this deadly, unnatural silence of mind were the question about the _purpose_ of love – and pain, dull, pounding ache deep inside my chest and stomach, clenching my insides in a very physical, agonizing way. I understood. I knew why I could not stay. It did not change anything – it did not ease my aching. Nothing would, for a time longer than I wish to admit.

I loved her. After all these years, when it no longer poses a threat either to her or myself and my goals, I can finally bring myself to utter these simple words that have now no receiver. She is dead. Murdered. And the only thing I have left of her is a _son_ – a son who snarled these words into my face and stated that he would never forgive me.

A child. I have a _child_.

 _"Sleep well, son." "Father, but promise that we'll leave at dawn?" "Yeah. Promise. Now off you go, lad. Goodnight." Clash of steel, loud, laboured breathing, stink of sweat. "Wait! Stop! I want a break!" "Aye, and that's what you'll say to your opponent when he comes to kill you? Parry, boy! Fight me!" "Stop, father, please!" "Never beg an enemy, Haytham. Never." "But-" "No buts! Don't you charge at me like a crazy monkey, it has to be precise! Thoughtful! Counter, boy! Counter!" Suddenly a loud, somehow muffled thud, a strangled moan – and my heart stops for a second when I see my father's body fall gracelessly on the ground._ Please, please, oh please don't be dead.

_Then, after a second, Edward Kenway rolls over, groans, and gives me the widest of his smiles. "That was one hell of a counter, Haytham. Where did you learn that?" I stand over him, little David over the fallen giant, my breathing too laboured and my muscles too sore to move an inch. "I... only wanted you to stop hurting me."_

_His smile cracks for a split second and I can see the pain in his eyes – pain that only after so many years I will be able to understand. But then it returns, proud and somehow softened as he pulls me down onto his chest. We lay together for a while, our breaths evening, and I finally relax my tensed, aching muscles. I want this moment to last. I don't have to look at his face to know that so does he. "See, that's the whole philosophy, son. You have to hurt the other one before he can get you. You're a natural at this."_

_I am on the verge of physical exhaustion, I can barely think straight, but I feel a spark of pride before I faint._

My father. Had he not die, I would most likely have become an Assassin and stand against everything I represent now – an element in the machine of indoctrination and control, placing faith in false ideals of humanity, preserving a child's mind and understanding even when growing old. With my Assassin heritage, natural ambition, and skill, I would be a Mentor instead of a Grand Master; the fight would continue, perhaps slightly different in details, but essentially the same. For the general objectives of our Orders _are_ the same: peace, prosperity, happiness. Only we are the disillusioned ones. The ones that know life too well to have trust. Sometimes I wonder – would I be happier in living under the illusion of human decency, virtue, strength of mind and soul? _He_ that _increaseth_ knowledge _increaseth sorrow,_ said Ecclesiastes, and throughout the centuries these words proved more than true to the Templar Order. Sweet ignorance, childish beliefs, blissful naivety… We allow them to blossom under our reign, for they make people happy and therefore unwilling to change. Problems arise when there is a group that shares the common faith in pretty lies, but sees far enough to recognize our influence. They insist that our eternal fight, the universal conflict between the Assassins and the Templars is based on our approach to freedom; it is not true. In fact, it is based on a much plainer fact. Both our Orders lie, but only one believes in the lies they tell themselves. We seek truth.

And so, in truth must I stand myself. Even in the privacy of my mind, even when I organize my thoughts by putting them on paper, as I have been doing since I was taught how to wield a quill, I am still avoiding the subject of my son. When I sat down to the journal, I intended to write about him specifically – yet my thoughts are so troubled and restless when it comes to him that it is easier to delve into familiar matters, remember the past, think of what brought us to where we stand today instead of focusing on the present. The moment I have learnt I have a son, a tumour started to grow on my soul – and instead of ripping it out, I am merely scratching around it, hoping it would ease my suffering. It matters not how faint memories of my own father I possess; it is of no importance how mute I am against the question of love. I have a son, a boy whose real name I may as well never learn, and must face this fact, however afraid I am. For I am afraid. I am sick with fear – that if the boy will not convert, one of us will have to kill another.

I remember that the first time I laid my eyes on him, in the darkness of Bridewell prison, I could immediately see the resemblance his features bore to my long-lost love. The power of these mixed, indescribable feelings, the most basic being pain and loss, surprised me more than I wish to admit even to myself. Had I been in my right mind, I should have confronted the boy right then; but I feared. I feared the eyes of Ziio in the face that looked too much like my own.

It had been too long since I last saw her eyes – her beautiful, shining, dark, wise eyes that held the wildness of a minx with the intelligence superior to any man I knew. I saw many shades of emotions in these eyes: initial distrust, determination, uneasy respect, interest, finally tenderness, trust, faith… then pain, anger, betrayal. But no hatred. Never hatred. Even when she warned me never to come back or else I would be killed, she did not have the cruel, hating glance of the young man I saw in the prison cell.

I felt as if it was she who looked at me through the eyes of the strangely familiar face; all her burning hate, betrayal, distrust, pain for being wronged, silent accusation for letting her die, for not saving her, for not knowing about the mere _existence_ of our son, if nothing more. Every blame to call upon me, the worst and most vile being the very foundation of my existence, the title I chose to call myself in allegiance to greater good – but it clearly meant the exact opposite in his understanding. _Templar_ , his eyes said. _You are a Templar._

Oh Ziio, love mine, what would you say if you knew that for our son – _our son_ – I am a hateful creature?

I once dreamt of having children. I hoped to carry on the legacy of the Kenway family, to become my father reincarnated and fulfil his destiny through raising my offspring the way I was to be raised. But never in my life have I imagined the children growing up without my presence, or even awareness; in my worst nightmares I haven't created a world where my son and heir is taken from me to be moulded in the hands of another man. And the greatest irony is that my son's upbringing was perhaps more faithful to the _family legacy_ than anything I could have ever provided. He was taught the ways of the assassins; the Old Man of the Hill was his mentor and tutor, and father. It was him and not me who gave my son a name.

I doubt that the boy has given it any thought, but I wonder – given the opportunity to carry the last name of his tutor, or the last name of his real father, would he choose to call himself Connor Kenway, or Connor Davenport? Would he accept the heritage of blood, the story of his noble grandfather, of Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Altair Ibn La-ahad, of Lucius, Brutus and Aquilius, would he agree to claim his heirloom if it meant that he would have to claim myself as well? Or would he renounce the millennia of noble history in his spite, choosing the name of a dead family and a crippled old man?

I cannot be sure. And it boils my blood and squeezes my insides with the claws of cold fury – pure, white anger at being _denied_ what had been rightfully mine. It should have been myself who had brought up the boy; who'd taught him to read and fight and court a woman, who'd shown him how to seek and understand the silent truth of the world. Instead, they had hidden his existence from me and filled his head with screaming lies of false freedom and liberty. And they had done well. Had I only known, had I heard the quietest whisper of a Kenway boy in the wilderness of the frontier, I would not have stopped. I would have gone and slaughtered every man and woman, young or old, who would have stood on the way to my child; I would have searched and searched until the bloody death, I would have moved the earth from its foundations, but I wouldn't have left my son – _Ziio's son_ – to live without a father.

Alas, it is too late now. For the child I have never sought turned into a man that does not need me to.

The only way to teach him how to fight is to draw my steel on him – and so I did, and so I will do again, given the way the most peaceful of our conversations look. My temper is short, and he took more after his mother than just her slanting eyes. He is stubborn, disobedient, and persistent in his vain quests. He does not listen, does not allow me to show him my true intentions. He does not trust me. It is perhaps wise of him to act so. But beyond that, he is just as ridiculously naive and gullible as a child looking up for the sky and reaching to take a bite off the moon.

And he does not let me explain the bitter truth that he cannot.

But a child that reached for the moon grew up, and reaches for a far more dangerous snack today. The war rages on, consuming lives and money, demolishing the precious order that we have worked for years to establish. The Old World is fighting the New; the foundations of civilisation, laid in such struggle, are collapsing in front of our eyes, and every action we take to patch the delicate balance is effectively ruined by my rampaging offspring. One by one, he eliminates our brothers, our spies, suppliers, and agents. If it was not so infuriating, I would admire the boy's thoroughness. One man, without friends or relatives (excluding my humble person, who would hardly help with this endeavour), a member of an organisation that has been long since wiped out from these lands, with no outer help whatsoever, has managed to significantly weaken the entire Colonial Rite of the Templar Order. Either we have gotten too comfortable in our advantageous position, or the boy is not to be underestimated. Perhaps both.

It is so strange to think that in an alternate reality, in a world that would allow me not to built my whole identity on lies and betrayal, I might have been proud of my son instead of planning to kill him.

I do not doubt that the boy has already thought of assassinating me as well. I wonder how he reacted when he was told – by the old cripple, most likely – that the villain he must slay for the freedom's sake is his own father. I wonder if he cringed. If he hesitated. I can hope so; from the scraps of information I gathered about him, he appears to be a kind, gentle spirit. A good man. Someone who would hesitate before drawing this ridiculous weapon – for goodness' sake, who goes on killing people with a hatchet? - on his own parent.

It is bitterly ironic how all the things in life come down to these simple aspects: love, family, fatherhood... and death. In the end, the final struggle will happen not between the Orders, not between the great ideals and notions of the better future we are fighting for; it will happen between a father and a son, and it will end either in filicide or patricide. But what frightens me with cold, freezing claws of terror closing on my gut is that deep inside I know _I will stand to this fight._

Because when the day comes, I will choose the ideals for whom I sacrificed all of my broken, shattered soul. I will choose what I was sworn for, in a cloud of lies and deceit that had guided me for so long; I will choose the distant idea of peace and order, and as a physician getting rid of a deadly disease to the patient, for the sake of the world I will slaughter the infected. Even if he is of my flesh and blood. For if I would not, then my whole existence would be a pathetic cry of a hypocrite.

I should have never had children. But since I do, I can only pray to all the divinities I cannot bring myself to believe in: let me refrain from this one death that I would not bear on my hands. Let me fulfil at least one basic principle of fatherhood, since I have failed in all the other. Let me not kill my child. _Let it be patricide._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I read "Forsaken" (as you may have noticed in the text) and was thoroughly disappointed. I mean... seriously? Such an emotionless, details-deprived description of such a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching story? This is of course my personal opinion, but I think that the scriptwriters outclass the book author at least ten times. The Kenway family tragedy and Haytham's personal story is a beautifully scripted narrative, and all it took was to write it down in a graceful manner – but Bowden's style is stiff and wooden, and the only thing that can give his stilted writing a touch of life is Adrian Hough's voice. (But then again, almost everything sounds perfect with Adrian Hough's voice, especially when he speaks as Haytham.) I loved the story to the bits – the fact that it was Haytham who saved Connor on the day of his execution, the whole plot with his mother and Jennifer and Birch, the elaboration on the European Templars – BUT I still missed something that no game can provide and a book can. I missed Haytham's inner monologue, his presence. I wanted to know what he was thinking and feeling. And there's absolutely NOTHING on that in "Forsaken" – it's basically a script for the gameplay written down and smoothed on the edges. And this, ladies and gentlemen, this is not what I call a good book.
> 
> So, since the book failed my expectations dramatically, I've decided to write something on my own. No profit is made, I don't own any elements of the AC franchise, disclaimer disclaimer. I just wanted a real character study on Haytham. I preserved the form of a diary, because it felt very natural... and canon, and I wanted to keep it canon. Overall, it was painful to write; and if it was equally painful and emotional to read, I'm a happy author. (And a horrible person, but that's another matter entirely.)
> 
> Review, please? Pretty please? I've spent on this solid fifteen hours of my life, you know. Surely you can spare thirty seconds to say whether you liked it or not. Or something more, if you're feeling generous. Anyway, be my guest ;3 and thank you ever so much!


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